I'm reluctant to be so bitchy with a 4-star rating, but does this herald a middle-aged resting-on-laurels phase for Wes Anderson, a comfort with being slightly less fussy, more doggedly efficient and productive (this now marks 4 movies in 5 years for him, a much higher rate than he held in the 2000s or 2010s)? While still unceasingly artificial at every moment, retro-fetished to the nines, framed with architectural exactitude and replete with adorable detail (in other words another reliably…

Well it’s not the sharkiest of movies - scant screen time, they have - but they’re thematically omnipresent, spoken of in awe-stricken obsessive reverence by our villain (relatable), and feature in 2-3 showstopping shots (one a montage of how terrifying shark diving can seem, one from the trailer of a great white slowly approaching a woman down in the deep, and a splashy one during the finale): sharksploitation achieved, and on a somewhat more sophisticated level, aka not just anonymously…

Yeah they lost it. There's effort here so I don't want to be too hostile, and in complete isolation maybe a handful of special effects shots are kinda cool. In contrast to the last time Tim Burton made a "Beetlejuice" movie, here we have a dour tone full of grief and resentment and regret (fun!), shrill performances (I know you're trying, Catherine O'Hara, but it ain't working, and get Justin Theroux the hell out of here), a muddy visual palette,…

Pragmatic!

Is the best way to describe this scrappy, intense, black-comedy thriller from the rising master of scrappy, intense, black-comedy thrillers Jeremy Saulnier. Like his debut "Murder Party", this is a chamber piece, confining a young punk band to mostly one room of a neo-Nazi club they made the mistake of playing at, where they become sitting ducks after witnessing a murder. And close quarters suit Saulnier's modus operandi impeccably, as he once again tackles a succinct premise with an…